Britain's Got Problems

I hate Britain’s Got Talent.  Genuinely.

Of course I watch it, of course I do, I confess.  And I don’t watch it in an “ironic” way, I know the myriad ways in which it’s awful, I watch it because I’m weak and I don’t like to miss out on anything. 

This year was much like any other year, a precession of mediocre talent, a few novelty acts, a few competent singers who fancied their chances in this more than X Factor where, forced to perform week after week, we soon grow tired of their quirks, and more than a fair helping of people who are either desperate for attention or desperately in need of an intervention.  What fundamentally annoys me so much about this programme is that the acts which draw the “ooohs” and “aaahs” are acts which are there to watch all the time if only people could be bothered to make the effort.  This year the judges waxed lyrical about choirs, about how this must be the sound you hear when you enter heaven.  A choir.  There are choirs all over the country, performing for nothing more than the joy of the sound that a group of humans can make together, but this is such a novelty to these vapid, boring individuals that they have never even contemplated going to watch a choir, or a classical music performance, or a dog show, or a stage magician.  They are so indoctrinated into the cult of mediocrity perpetuated by the likes of Simon Cowell that they have to have these things delivered straight to them.  This is also why we have the now all-too-familiar recurrence of the Susan Boyle effect, the incredible revelation that – gasp! – ugly people can be talented too!  We are so used to seeing hand-picked, expensively groomed, media-managed clones performing computer generated synth pop that the sight of someone slightly overweight performing an aria is some form of divine revelation.  Not that anyone involved with the show or the audience will then make the effort to go out and see an opera, we’d be lucky if they even downloaded a bit of classical music, instead it’s back to the humdrum bilge of familiarity.

And what of the judges themselves?  David Walliams is the only person who has actually produced anything himself, actually created, though what he in fact created was a handful of catchphrases which he managed to trot out for years.  Alesha Dixon, but for a couple of lucky decisions, would more than likely find herself waiting for the call from “The Big Reunion”, a kiddy pop artist with one or two solo “hits” penned for her by hugely expensive marketing musicians.  Amanda Holden, Amanda Fucking Holden, the girl who never grew up, more famous for an affair than anything she has done since and strangely, creepily, obsessed with Disney princesses.  And finally the man himself, Sico, who I am becoming more and more convinced is a little simple, literally believing that a dog had just spoken or challenging an illusionist to see if what he had just witnessed was a trick – THE MAN BELIEVES THAT MAGIC IS REAL!

Year after year these cretins line up to exploit people into showing them something different to the quagmire of tedium that they themselves have created and the audience lap it up.  The show is about “variety”, but here that variety is little more than a freakshow, where the freaks are real people, with real interests and, just every now and then, real talent.

Thank god it’s over.